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LARP Plot Tips: Double-Hooking

 One of the basic tools that Plot teams have at their disposal is double hooking. This is where two groups of players NPC for each other's module. The benefit of double hooking is that you can use a much larger pool of NPCs in your module.

I know some games have mandatory NPC time, so players aren't expected to NPC during their play time. I know that some players just don't want to NPC period. Maybe we've been blessed with helpful players, but we've never had issues getting players to double hook. Here are a few helpful hints when trying to promote players to double-hook.

1. On-Call NPC Time
Maybe your game normally does a required 4 hour block of time for NPCing. As plot, you have the ability to give players an offer to instead do about two hours of on-call NPCing. This means when they come up for a module you can request them to double hook one or two mods, depending on length. The benefit of this is that you get NPCs when you need them and you won't have issues with multiple groups NPCing at the same time, reducing the strength of the town.

2. Special Dispensation
You can give people who double hook some special treatment.  The special treatment cannot have any actual in-game effect or benefit and needs to be available to all players, or else it will be seen as bribery or favoritism, and that will frustrate players to no end.

We always used to have a travel time associated with various locations around town proper.  We would tell the PCs that they would have to wait that amount of time before we could run the module, unless they double-hooked. If they NPC'd for a module, we'd run theirs right away and they could get back to the game. We don't want them out of game for two hours and they don't want to be out of game for two hours, so truthfully everyone wins. Sure, it seems like Mutually-Assured-Destruction, but players would double hook more than 90% of the time.

3. Make it Easy to Double-Hook
Making it easy for the players is one of the most powerful things you can do to promote double-hooking. I have seen a lot of plot teams bring the players in, tell them to memorize someone else's card, get treasure, get weapons, and get a tabard. That's way too much work for someone who's doing you a favor. Instead, make sure you have plenty of monster cards available, as well as clean tabards, weapons, and treasure so the players don't have to do any work. They will associate double-hooking with painless experiences they've had before.